AUSTIN, Texas — Neighbors are reeling after a 21-year-old man allegedly killed his grandparents in their South Austin home.
Austin police said multiple people called 911 on Saturday asking for a welfare check on Shari Mallory-Maxa and Anthony Maxa at their home on Brookhill Drive.
Debby Dourte, who lives directly across the street from them, says she didn’t know the Maxa family well, but wishes that she had.
“I don’t ever want to pry into anybody’s personal life, but if there had been anything that we could have done, we would have done it,” Dourte said.
For 30 years, she said she’s known the Maxas and their grandchildren as good neighbors in their quiet community, saying they’d greet each other often and that they would come to swim in her pool on occasion. However, she said she didn’t know them behind closed doors.
Last Saturday, police said they got a 911 call from the Maxa family asking for a welfare check on the couple at their home. The caller expressed concern about the couple’s grandchild, saying Chevy Monaghan was unstable, and was worried he could hurt the couple after an argument.
The caller reported “that [Monaghan] did have a gun in the past that he shot off.”
When officers arrived at the home, they said Monaghan came out of the garage and addressed them nonchalantly, lighting a marijuana cigarette, and opening a can of soda. Officers asked him of his grandparent’s whereabouts, and he said they were inside the house and doing fine.
As officers entered the home to check, they found the couple shot to death.
Police said while they arrested him, they found prescription medication and jewelry belonging to the couple in Monaghan’s pockets, and further investigation of the home showed jewelry from the bedroom was loaded into boxes in a car. A gun was found in the hallway leading to the couple’s bedroom that Monaghan purchased from a pawn shop in July.
“The whole street was blocked off,” Tom Turner, another neighbor on Brookhill Drive, said.
According to Turner, police swarmed the neighborhood, blocking off the street for hours. Turner said he didn’t know the Maxas well, but their deaths are shocking as fellow grandparents.
“Raising or helping to raise a grandchild, it’s just something special and you certainly don’t expect violence in a family like that,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, Dourte said they’re shocked by the incident, saying Monaghan had often helped her mother-in-law with yard work and was very polite. She said she prays for strength and healing of the family.
“We’re grieving because it’s a loss of a good neighbor,” Dourte said. “When you lose someone, you always feel bad that you didn’t get to make the last connection with them to be more than just a wave, and more of a, ‘How are you doing?'”
Monaghan was charged with capital murder and is being held at the Travis County Jail with no bond.